The skies opened up Sunday, and within 24 hours, so did the pavement on Interstate 35.

A pothole ruptured the southbound lanes of I-35 near Rittiman Road overnight Sunday into Monday, flattening some tires, demanding emergency repairs and making the first Monday morning commute after daylight saving time all the more miserable, as if it needed any help.

The cause was the varying temperatures and rainfall of the past few days, said Texas Department of Transportation officials.

No size estimate for the crater was available Monday, but it caused enough damage that at one point in the morning 20 cars were stopped across both shoulders and the access road. Road-side assistance crews were out, helping drivers replace tires as the rain kept falling.

TxDOT crews shut down two lanes of the highway for several hours Monday to patch the pothole, and they plan to close a lane or two every night this week for more pothole repairs. But a more lasting fix can only be made when “a stretch of warmer, drier weather” arrives, TxDOT spokesman Josh Donat said.

“We’ve had issues over the last few weeks because of the wet and cold weather and made repairs as late as Thursday night/Friday morning,” Donat said. “Headed into the weekend, we were all clear along this stretch.”

On Twitter, some drivers responded to TxDOT’s updates about I-35 with queries about another stretch of San Antonio roadway: southbound U.S. 281 near the Quarry.

TxDOT has been getting complaints about potholes and torn-up pavement on U.S. 281 from roughly Jones Maltsberger Road to Hildebrand Avenue since at least November, according to emails obtained through an open-records request.

“It’s just getting worse,” a TxDOT official lamented about a pothole there Jan. 12. People reported flying rocks attacking their windshields, and one caller on Feb. 11 complained “the asphalt is just going away.”

“Inside lane is the only safe 1 left,” a Twitter user wrote Monday.

Crews have been patching holes on U.S. 281 and in fact had plans to repave sections of the road — a more permanent fix — both of the last two weekends, officials said. But the bad weather made TxDOT change its plans.

TxDOT officials say they hope to repave the section of U.S. 281 this month, but crews need a weekend’s worth of dry weather and warm temperatures for the work.

Drew Joseph joined the Express-News in 2013 . Before coming to San Antonio, he covered health for the San Franciso Chronicle, lobbying and campaign finance for National Journal and breaking news for the Oregonian. He is a San Francisco Bay Area native and went to Dartmouth College.